The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported 1,354 new infections of COVID-19 Tuesday.
In a Twitter update via its verified handle, the government agency said there are now 92,705 confirmed cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus in Nigeria.
A total number of 76,396 people it stated, have so far been discharged from hospital, while the number of deaths so far is 1,319.
As of Tuesday, more than 85.7 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide, with more than 48.2 million cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a COVID-19 tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 1.8 million.
Eswatini, according to the CBC, aims to vaccinate all its 1.3 million people against COVID-19, senior officials in the southern African kingdom said.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s undertakers are struggling to cope with the rise in deaths, National Funeral Practitioners Association of SA President Muzi Hlengwa told state broadcaster SABC.
“It is something that you have never seen before. … We have run out of coffins, we have run out of space at the mortuary,” he said. “We normally have cremations during the day but now we have cremations even at night.”
England is facing a third national lockdown that will last at least six weeks, as authorities struggle to stem a surge in COVID-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals around the UK.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday announced a tough new stay-at-home order for England that won’t be reviewed until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus. It takes effect at midnight Tuesday. Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon imposed a lockdown that began Tuesday.
Amid public outcry, France’s health minister has promised an “exponential” acceleration of his country’s slow coronavirus vaccination process.
After barely 500 people in France were vaccinated in the first six days, Health Minister Olivier Veran defended the government’s strategy of giving the vaccines first to residents of nursing homes. But he vowed Tuesday to simplify a bureaucratic consent process blamed in part for France’s lagging vaccinations.
Mexico approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for emergency use Monday.
Assistant Health Secretariat Hugo Lopez-Gatell said he erroneously reported approval for Chinese vaccine-maker CanSino, noting it had not yet submitted full study results for safety and efficacy.
Mexico’s capital has more virus patients than at any point in the pandemic and is flying in doctors from less hard-hit states. Its beach resorts are readying for more cases after thousands of U.S. and European tourists visited over the holidays.
Iran has registered its first case of a highly contagious coronavirus variant that emerged in Britain, in an Iranian who arrived from the UK.
American biotech company Moderna said Israel has approved its COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna said in a statement Tuesday that the Israeli Health Ministry authorized use of the company’s vaccine and that it would begin delivering this month the six million doses secured by Israel.
Israel’s Health Ministry reported 8,308 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Tuesday — one of the highest daily tallies since the beginning of the pandemic — as the country struggles to contain the pandemic during a third national lockdown.
Japan will decide later this week whether to impose a state of emergency in the Tokyo area, a move citizens derided as too little, too late in a nation set to host the Olympics.
As a team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) prepares to visit China to investigate the origins of COVID-19, Beijing has stepped up efforts not only to prevent new outbreaks, but also shape the narrative about when and where the pandemic began.
The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus in South Korea passed 1,000 on Tuesday, while an increasing number of gym owners said they would reopen in protest against strict physical distancing rules.